No timetable for Iraq attack: Bush

By Steve HollandWaco, TexasAugust 12 2002

US President George Bush has described Iraq as an "enemy until proven otherwise", but moved to play down an imminent attack. He said he had no timetable for deciding whether to use military force to topple President Saddam Hussein.

"I described them as the 'axis of evil' once," Mr Bush said yesterday. "I describe them as an enemy until proven otherwise."

But the President, who is on a four-week vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, added, when asked if Americans were prepared for casualties: "That presumes there is some kind of imminent war plan. As I have said, I have no timetable.

"But I do believe what the American people understand is that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of leaders such as Saddam Hussein are very dangerous for ourselves.

"They know that when we speak of making the world more safe we do so not only in the context of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, but nations that have proved themselves to be bad neighbours and bad actors."");document.write("

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His comments follow statements on Saturday by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that were seen by some commentators as offering one of the most emphatic rationales so far for a possible invasion of Iraq.

Speaking at a Pentagon news conference, Mr Rumsfeld said international economic sanctions, US military air patrols and other measures over the past decade had largely failed to contain Iraq's development and amassing of weapons of mass destruction.

"There is no way any reasonable person could look at that record and say that it's worked," he said. "It hasn't worked."

Mr Rumsfeld's statement followed a meeting with seven Iraqi opposition groups that met over the weekend with the administration, including Vice-President Dick Cheney in a video link-up and Secretary of State Colin Powell, to discuss the potential of a US-led regime change in Iraq.

After the meeting, Sharif Ali Bin Al-Hussein, who represents the Constitutional Monarchy Movement, said the Iraqi military was ready to revolt against Mr Saddam.

"There is nobody left in Iraq who believes in Saddam Hussein," he said. "They only fear his apparatus of terror. With the help of the United States, that apparatus of terror can be dismantled."

The meeting appears to have gone some way to allaying US concerns over whether the Iraqi dissidents would be able to put behind them their usual fractious relationship.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has announced it would no longer solicit terrorism tips from utility workers, postal employees and anyone else with access to people's homes.

The controversial Operation TIPS program was originally designed to set up a nationwide network of domestic tipsters from within the US workforce who the administration believed were in a "unique position" to report suspicious activity.

The administration still plans to enlist potentially hundreds of thousands of workers as part of Operation TIPS. But officials have decided workers with access to homes and private property will not be authorised to use the special, unpublished tipster hotline, Justice Department officials announced.